Werk!

Peaches Christ presents 9 to 5 with Pandora Boxx and Heklina: Werk!.




Ferk yeah.

Oh, and the Flat Broke Puppet Company was there too. Heklina and her puppetgänger.


That's some hilarious messed up stuff right there.

Crafty!

Peaches Christ has successfully taken her Midnight Mass to a new level of drag productions and cult movies at the Castro Theater. I love the hour-long drag versions of these cult classics, and Peaches and her special guests thrown down performances not to be missed.

I was giddy for The Craft this weekend. And Kevin hadn't even seen the original before. Giggity! Sad news: the evening show sold out immediately. Happy news: Matinee was still good. Happier news: That meant pre-lunch and pre-drinking Castro fun time! Happiest news: Satyricon put together a matinee pre-party at the Mix.

I love my people.


"It is better than you fall upon this blade than enter this circle with fear in your heart. How do you enter?"


And I love that Peaches can sell out a matinee and two shows in a day. I'm so happy for her success. Honey Mahogany and Sharon Needles were great, it was fun to see Spaz as a man in this one, but Heklina can steal any scene!


Ah! Completely inappropriate fun times!

(Warning, bad singing and thong/bare ass cheeks video)

Paris Is Burning at the Castro Theater

The documentary of the drag ball scene in New York City in the 80s, Paris Is Burning,  is very much gay canon, and was done proper respect by Peaches Christ last Saturday night at the Castro Theater.  Truth be told, she went beyond respect, and brought a sold-out house to the altar and led the service to standing ovations.  Not only was her show sold-out, people lined up at 10:00 a.m., around the block, for a chance at the 70 "rush" tickets which would be go on sale at 2:00 p.m.

Guesting starring the event was Ru Paul's Drag Race celebrity Latrice Royale, who frakking worked the crowd into a frenzy.  Proper drag is a talent sorely under-appreacted by the World At Large, but I am selfish and okay with keeping it between us.




And while I completely adored Peaches' pre-show, which was in all ways perfect for the event, the "ball" which followed was just made of awesome, and the Vogue-off about nearly made my head explode. (For those of you unfamiliar, Madonna stole-some say she made an homage-voguing from the Harlem gay underground in the 80s and is celebrated in Paris is Burning.)


I have also found it interesting that the young gays are rediscovering terms like Reading and Shade and how the terms have re-entered the vernacular, however often they may be inappropriately invoked.

Peaches really hit it out of the park on this one.


And I got to sit with my favorite drag fanatics Jeff and Brian, which just added to the awesome. Shouts, sisters.


Here's the original TV spot for Paris Is Burning. It amazes me that it aired at all.

and NOW a warning...

As Halloween fast approaches, Peaches Christ has put on another fab seasonal show. This time she was joined by Heklina and D'arcy Drollinger (friend of the blog, and recently played Suzanne Sugarbaker in Designing Women Live and Lindsay Lohan in a one person show) for a superbly done musical/dance drag interpretation (and screening) of Death Becomes Her.

So much fun.


And these queens knocked it out.


That's D'Arcy Drollinger as the Isabella Rossalini character, leading the dance number to, appropriately enough, Forever Young.

The final scene cut away to a wonderfully dark joke. The undead celebrity who woke up from the bathtub...


...yeah, that's Whitney Houston. Which led to my favorite line of the night, which may have been ad libbed, from Heklina:

"I just want to celebrate eight months of Whitney Houston being clean and sober."

Happy Halloween bitches.

daily dose of WTF

last month Kevin took Kelly and me on another fun Mystery Date. This time it was to the Bearracuda/Midnight Mass mashup event Church. The music and the performance was a complete mess, but as we do, we all had fun. We loves our Peaches.




We met for drinner and drinks beforehand, but Kelly and I were on time, which meant we were a good hour early, and set off wandering the off-streets of the near Mission for a dive cocktail. We were not disappointed with the Bulleit/PBR specials at a little hole in the wall.

The best though, was spotting this at eye level on someone's stoop.

Our daily dose of WTF. Which I kind of loved.

Flash— AAAAAAAH!

This week's Midnight Mass was Flash Gordon. I did not manage a costume, but Kevin went balls out with the eyebrows.

Kevin, Shilpa and I hit Kryolan on Saturday to prepare for the Midsummer Night's Dream party in a couple of weeks, and Kevin dropped sixty bucks on an eyebrow kit (mustaches hand-stitched from human hair) and materials. (I'm not criticizing. I dropped $65 on makeup for my wood nymph face paint plan.)

Kevin totally had a vision of what he wanted in a Ming's minion, or perhaps just Ming's cousin, with the eyebrows.





The boots and shirt made the look.



This Midnight Mass wasn't nearly as fun as the others as the crowd was pretty lame, and the film, surprisingly, did not lend itself to much commentary. Although I had forgotten how half-naked-muscle-hairy-bondage-y it was.

The pre-show was very elaborate and well-done, if not too long for our attention spans. Peaches looked awesome.

The saving grace and much fun of the evening was sitting with the fun guys we sat next to at Xanadu. Big shouts to them, who showed up in blond wigs and Flash shirts.



I got a photo (using their camera, forgot mine) of them and a guy in a Flash-like shirt that read "Fish." It turned out he was the radio-pre-show-playwright, and "Flash Gordon" became lesbian softball star "Fish Gordon." Still, funny.



Flash guys and Peaches:



Flash guy's (GweedoInSF) Flickr photoset.

Dr. May has returned from weeks down under and I need to rush to welcome him back—so I have to cut this post short.

Later all.

XanaDo! Do! Do!

While I was disheartened to see that Midnight Mass: Sing Along Xanadu/Drag Queen Roller Derby was sold out online, I was excited to hear that Javits went down to the theater in person and managed to score the last set of tickets.

Kevin, usually up for the adventure but not terribly excited as he hates the movie, did a 180 and texted me that he did in fact want a ticket as he was now "in the mood for a costume."

I freaking love my friends.

And I, of course, did not disappoint him.

Being the sort of guy who can dress in costume out of the items in his closet, we had our choices of main characters, Xanadu dancers, or a franchise glitz dealer.

Give the boy a little sparkly and he's higher than a Lohan.

We wore our costumes to dinner. Here he is with the famous and talented faux queen Bea Dazzler:

I was worried that she was participating in the Drag Queen Roller Derby as the final event is the "Wig Snatch" and that wig looked like a competitive liability.

I went as Sonny Malone, the tragic Michael Beck character ("tragic" here referring to the actor, not the character). To make the costume more detailed, I should have shaved and found a near-mullet wig, but that was way too much trouble. And it was crazy hot as it was.

I did, however, stop at Walgreen's to get some silly putty to approximate Michael Beck's serious schnoz. Unfortunately, all they carry now are the neon colors. I thought it might be a good thing though as a fake nose in bright orange would be funnier.

However, the effect in this photo is a little "Bert."

Even though Midnight Mass has gone a little too mainstream, we were not the only ones in costume. One of my favorite was the non-costume on this cutie. I asked to take his pic and he pointed out that it doesn't really spell "Xanadu," but I thought it was close enough for clever and showed some effort.


Those in sparkles tended to gravitate to one another:


But I had to wonder if he stole this from his mother's closet. Cracked me up.


There were several fabulous "Kira"s for my "Sonny."

Some clearly prettier than others.


The pre-show was awesome. I was able to take some 20/30 second clips with my camera.







Peaches, of course, was HI-larious. But the Main Event of the evening was the Drag Queen Roller Derby.

Now, Kevin and I were at the original event at the Midnight Mass screening of The Apple back in 2004. That was off the hook.

This year, everyone, not just the participants, had to sign a libaility waiver to enter the theater for drag queen roller derby-related injuries. I am not making this up.

The two teams this year were the RollerTards...


...and the Skinny White Bitches.



The final event is the most violent: The Wig Snatch, in which the team who rips the most wigs off the other team wins. This is a timed event.




Our commentary was, of course, painfully funny and insightful. Although I will say I never noticed the homoerotic sub-text of the Danny Maguine/Sonny Malone relationship (to which the audience would chant "NAMBLA" whenever they touched).

Our new best friends (other than the Irish hottie sitting next to me that I let leave without giving my number) are Lesie and Terrence. They were sitting one row in front of us and about six seats over. But she loved our commentary so much she started rewarding the best lines with Whoppers. These two totally "get" Midnight Mass. There were not in Xanadu-themed attire, but rather in their pajamas. It is a midnight show after all (we didn't leave until around 3:30 A.M.).


And of course, one last shot of me with our hostess, Peaches Christ:

A million lights are dancing and then there you are, a shooting star.

[flickr set]



Update!

More clips from other people have been posted to YouTube:

The Drag Queen Roller Derby Beach Ball Keep Away:



And the painful Wig Snatch:

Working it for the Weekend

I'm ready for another weekend!

Last Saturday was one of those perfect days. I got up early and had a coffee and went over to Kevin's place to plan our day. Saturday night was Midnight Mass: Death Race 2000! And of course, we were going to be appropriately attired. We spent too many hours finding and searching junkyards for a steering wheel. What we won't do for props.

Apparently, insurance policies in SF preclude customers from actually going on the lot (as opposed to 'pick your part' junkyards in the East Bay) and these guys wanted over $50 for a steering wheel, which was more than we wanted to pay for a throw-away prop. We decided we would just get a foam ring from a craft store and wrap it in electrical or tennis-racket tape.

We then went to a uniform store in SoMa and tried on various coveralls, ultimately finding limited success. The very helpful woman there was able to pick out sizes that mostly fit us, but Kevin's needed major taking-in in the waist, and mine needed the ass reduced something major. So we called Barney and made an appointment to drop in at Club Jackson after lunch, and bring him some beer for our alterations.

After we found our mechanics' coveralls, we went to the profesional theatrical make-up place at Mission and 9th—because Kevin wanted to put a SF spin on our race team and do a red-skull "Day of the Dead" thing. I didn't really get the idea, but I am game for any adventure and supported the plan.

This makeup is really, really good and so much better than other crap I have dealth with at Halloween. We also took note of their other dramatic accroutrements, which were way gross.



The vileness of the chunky faux vomit was matched only by the fabulousness of the spray glitter.

Oh my.

We took lunch at Harvey's in the Castro and enjoyed the view, then chilled with Dr. Barney over at Club Jackson for the afternoon.



I took Kevin back to Daly City and we each got about a 15-minute disco nap before Kevin came back to my place to prep.

We were TEAM MAD MAX FACTOR, which I thought was genius for Death Race 2000 meets Peaches Christ. I wrote our names on the back of our uniforms in red tape (purchased for an insane eight bucks at Mendel's, where we bought the fabric for our racing scarves). This took for freakin' ever to write:



so it really sucked when getting out of the car, it just looked like this:



Pretty much in the first 15 minutes, what was left had transfered to the backs of our theater seats.

I am so broke and such a miser, but I didn't bat an eye on shelling out (and this is just my half) $50 for coveralls, $30 for makeup, $20 for misc crafts, and $30 for tickets. It was reminiscent of last year's extenisve costuming and props for Mommy Dearest. Clearly I am penny-wise and Midnight Mass-foolish.

And Kevin sprung for a steering wheel cover we fouind at Kragen's, which came with a plastic steering wheel to hold its shape. With the label blacked-out with a Sharpie, it was perfect.

And I must say, we looked awesome.








We were also the pre-show pre-show. The crowd was very straight, a little staid, and we were the only ones dressed with flair. So we took it upon ourselves to be entertaining. Or put another way, we let our freak flag fly.

While waiting for the pre-show to start, I would do laps racing up and down the aisles. I would shift, accelerate, and make little "vroom" noises while I did loops in alternating directions. For one lap, I left my soda/cocktail with Mr. Moses in the orchestra and after I mimed a drive-though order to the tragedy/comedy masks up front, he took my cash and handed me the drink. For the last lap, I broke down in the handicapped section, and Kevin, heretofore unseen by the audience, came down with his toolbox and repaired me. We returned to our seats just as the lights dimmed.

It reads kinda lame looking at it typed now, but trust me, the crowd loved us.

And Peaches was pleased with the effort.